Champs Sports became the first athletic lifestyle retailer to take advantage of Snap Inc.’s SnapML technology to allow potential customers to “try on” shoes via an augmented reality lens.
The lens is part of the retailer’s Refresh Your Gama campaign, aimed at promoting the availability this month of the Nike Air Vapormax 2020 Flyknit and Nike Air Max 95.
It is available to select Snapchatters in the U.S. via Lens Carousel and to all users via Snapcode.
Snap said that so far, the lens is seeing an average share rate of more than 8%, five times its retail lens benchmark.
The company introduced SnapML at its Snap Partner Summit in June, and the technology allows developers to add their own machine learning models to Snapchat AR lenses.
Brands including Gucci, Hoka One One and Sally Hansen have run similar try-on campaigns on Snapchat by incorporating SnapML.
Champs Sports and Eastbay vice president of marketing Jason Brown said in a statement, “Champs Sports is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to reach our consumers. We were thrilled to partner with Snapchat to take our Refresh Your Game platform to the next level. Our community has already been very receptive to our Nike shoe try-on campaign. Unlocking shoppable AR through Snapchat will be huge for us.”
